There is a very large gulf between what I see around me and what, say, the charts people put up on the screen for relative levels of real cost-of-living adjusted income in Kansas City and Portland. The numbers seem to say that the Kansas City, Mo./Kan. metropolitan area is about 10 percent richer than the Portland, OR metropolitan area. But my eyes tell me that Portland is about 20 percent richer than Kansas City.

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/23/whos-better-off-paris-of-the-plains-or-stumptown-a-cost-of-living-puzzler/feed/0Getting to ‘Yes’ for Corporate Innovationhttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/17/getting-to-yes-for-corporate-innovation/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/17/getting-to-yes-for-corporate-innovation/#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2015 19:48:11 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12821I’ve been working with Roberto, the Chief Innovation Officer of a diversified company I’ll call Sprocket Industries.

I hadn’t heard from Roberto in awhile and when we caught up, it was clear his initial optimism had faded. I listened as Roberto listed the obstacles to the new innovation program at Sprocket, “We’ve created innovation teams in both the business units and in corporate. Our CEO is behind the program. The division general managers have given us their support. But the teams still run into what feel like immovable obstacles in every part of the company. Finance, HR, Branding, Legal, you name ... More >]]>

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/17/getting-to-yes-for-corporate-innovation/feed/0Fear of Failure and Lack of Speed In a Large Corporationhttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/11/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of-speed-in-a-large-corporation/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/11/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of-speed-in-a-large-corporation/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2015 19:33:08 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12806I just spent a day working with Bob, the Chief Innovation Officer of a very smart large company I’ll call Acme Widgets.

Bob summarized Acme’s impediments to innovation. “At our company we have a culture that fears failure. A failed project is considered a negative to a corporate career. As a result, few people want to start a project that might not succeed. And worse, even if someone does manage to start something new, our management structure has so many financial, legal and HR hurdles that every initiative needs to match our existing business financial metrics, processes and procedures. So we ... More >]]>

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/11/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of-speed-in-a-large-corporation/feed/0Keystone XL, energy policy and the job-creation shufflehttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/18/keystone-xl-energy-policy-and-the-job-creation-shuffle/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/18/keystone-xl-energy-policy-and-the-job-creation-shuffle/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 22:11:24 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12757Renewable energy proponents and advocates of the Keystone pipeline finally agree on something: that the right way to count “job creation” is to focus narrowly on the jobs in the industry they want to boost and ignore the overall impact on employment. Unfortunately, researchers who actually study employment are not on board.

The “green jobs” movement is currently having a break out moment in California, just as the fight over Keystone is headed towards a final showdown, with proponents bellowing more about the thousands of workers who will briefly be employed building the pipeline than the dozens who will operate it.

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/18/keystone-xl-energy-policy-and-the-job-creation-shuffle/feed/2Trade deals boost those at the top, bust the resthttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/17/trade-deals-boost-those-at-the-top-bust-the-rest/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/17/trade-deals-boost-those-at-the-top-bust-the-rest/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 23:11:35 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12750Suppose that by enacting a particular law we’d increase the U.S.Gross Domestic Product. But almost all that growth would go to the richest 1 percent.

The rest of us could buy some products cheaper than before. But those gains would be offset by losses of jobs and wages.

This is pretty much what “free trade” has brought us over the last two decades.

I used to believe in trade agreements. That was before the wages of most Americans stagnated and a relative few at the top captured just about all the economic gains.

Free-trade areas with three or more participants (Emilfaro via Wikimedia ... More >]]>

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/17/trade-deals-boost-those-at-the-top-bust-the-rest/feed/5Courageous Leaders Admit Uncertaintyhttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/14/courageous-leaders-admit-uncertainty/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/14/courageous-leaders-admit-uncertainty/#commentsSat, 14 Feb 2015 12:43:51 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12746The expression of confidence is intimately tied up with leadership. Would-be leaders are careful to present a confident face because it helps gain them credibility and convince others that they know what they are doing.

When George W. Bush faced John Kerry in their first Presidential debate in 2004, Bush criticized Kerry for having changed his mind on the war in Iraq. “I just know how this world works,” Bush declared. “And in the councils of government, there must be certainty from the U.S. President.” Even those who may have disagreed with Bush’s policies may nevertheless support this view. In his profile ... More >]]>

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/14/courageous-leaders-admit-uncertainty/feed/0The share-the-scraps economyhttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/04/the-share-the-scraps-economy/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/04/the-share-the-scraps-economy/#commentsWed, 04 Feb 2015 18:17:40 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12717How would you like to live in an economy where robots do everything that can be predictably programmed in advance, and almost all profits go to the robots’ owners?

Meanwhile, human beings do the work that’s unpredictable – odd jobs, on-call projects, fetching and fixing, driving and delivering, tiny tasks needed at any and all hours – and patch together barely enough to live on.

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/04/the-share-the-scraps-economy/feed/4When Krave Jerky Showed up in Class with a $435,000 Checkhttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/03/when-krave-jerky-showed-up-in-class-with-a-435000-check/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/03/when-krave-jerky-showed-up-in-class-with-a-435000-check/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 19:13:52 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12713I remind my students that I’m teaching them a methodology they can use the rest of their careers, not running an incubator.

Every once in awhile a team ignores my advice and builds a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hershey just bought Krave Jerky, a team in our 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class, for >$200 million.
—–
Jon Sebastiani and his team came into the 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class with several key observations:

Snack foods were a large ~$35 billion but the moribund food category was starving for innovation and modernization
Meat snacks were a $2.5 billion subcategory of snacks. So there was ... More >]]>http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/02/03/when-krave-jerky-showed-up-in-class-with-a-435000-check/feed/2Will E-commerce Make Prices More Flexible?http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/01/14/will-e-commerce-make-prices-more-flexible/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/01/14/will-e-commerce-make-prices-more-flexible/#commentsThu, 15 Jan 2015 03:10:07 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12686Today, it’s hard to imagine the world without the internet. PewResearch Internet Project reports that the internet is used by 87% of American adults, up from 14% in 1995. Apart from changing the way how people communicate, connect, or acquire information, the internet has also changed our shopping habits: with just a few clicks, one can buy almost anything online and get it delivered promptly! Not surprisingly, the growth of e-commerce has been phenomenal: virtually non-existent 15 years ago, e-commerce sales stood at $263.3 billion and accounted for 5.6% of total retail sales in the U.S. economy in 2013.

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/01/14/will-e-commerce-make-prices-more-flexible/feed/1On housing, good news for families and communitieshttp://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/01/08/on-housing-good-news-for-families-and-communities/
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/01/08/on-housing-good-news-for-families-and-communities/#commentsFri, 09 Jan 2015 00:06:26 +0000http://blogs.berkeley.edu/?p=12671President Obama’s announcement that the Federal Housing Administration will lower the cost of its home loans by one-half of a percentage point (.50 basis points) should be very welcome news. Home loans will now be within reach for many more hard working and responsible families who have been left on the sidelines of the economic recovery.

This cost reduction is good for homeowners and would-be homeowners, communities still struggling to recover from the recession, and the economy more generally. The National Association of Realtors reports the first-time homebuyer has been largely absent during the economic recovery. The inventory of homes at ... More >]]>